


aembers

by silkspectred



Series: the slowest runner [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alpha Steve Rogers, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Avengers Family, Blood, Break Up, Captivity, Co-Parenting, Depression, Fascist imagery, Gore, Heartbreak, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Mpreg, Injury, Intrusive Thoughts, Kid Fic, M/M, Mentions of Rape, Morally Ambiguous Character, Murder, Nazi imagery, No Getting Back Together, No Sex, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Omega Tony Stark, Pining Steve Rogers, Post-Break Up, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Protective Steve Rogers, Protective Tony Stark, Self-Hatred, Serious Injuries, Steve Whump, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 18:47:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19068508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silkspectred/pseuds/silkspectred
Summary: In the exact moment Steve opens his eyes and looks at Tony, he knows he will murder every single person that’s responsible for this.[Story set about six years after the events of cacw]





	aembers

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place during _the slowest runner in all the world_ , as a missing scene. For reference, Sarah here is about five years old, so it's been a while since the events of cacw that caused Steve and Tony to break up. 
> 
> The fic is set before the (sort of) happy ending that you can read in part 2 of the series, _oscillations_. 
> 
> If you haven’t read the rest of the series it’s unlikely this fic will make much sense to you.
> 
> Thanks to tones and gem for beta.

In the exact moment Steve opens his eyes and looks at Tony, he knows he will murder every single person that’s responsible for this.

Tony is in front of him.

Steve looks at him—passed out, head hanging low on his chest in a heavy way, but visibly breathing. He’s been stripped of his armor, reactor nowhere to be seen. They took away his watch, his glasses, even his tie and his suit jacket. Everything. All his toys and anything else he could use to build something or call someone.

They tied him up. There are thick metal cuffs around his wrists, chained to a hook on the wall above his head, so he’s forced to keep his arms up in the air. There’s blood trickling down the inside of his forearms—his shirt sleeves have been haphazardly rolled up to his elbows—an angry rash where the metal chafed the skin. He has a black bruise under his left eye.

Someone did that.   

Someone—god, the lurch of rage inside Steve’s stomach, the rightful bile of a scorned Alpha—someone dared to put their filthy, vile hands on Tony, and hurt him.

That is simply unacceptable.

Steve swallows.

He forces himself to calm down in order to assess his own situation, but he’s not faring better than Tony. He has no cowl and no belt. No shield either, obviously. They took the top of the suit Tony made him last month, and he’s been left in his undershirt. His wrists are bound too, chained up on the wall in the same way Tony’s are, but the cuffs are different. It’s something large and bulky, covering his hands and part of his fingers, too. Reinforced with vibranium, and… something else.

Electricity.

Damn.

He doesn’t try to pull at them. He knows what will happen if he tries to pull at them.

And then, the last thing he allows himself to notice, there’s his left leg. Broken. Now that he’s paying attention to it, he realizes that it hurts more than it should. It must be at least a few hours old, and the serum has kicked in, sure, but it feels like it’s not working as fast as it should.

Maybe it’s just Steve’s fear fucking with his perception of things. Maybe the healing’s fine and he’s just worried.

He sighs.

“Tony,” Steve calls, softly, so he doesn’t spook him.

Tony stirs but doesn’t wake.

“Tony,” Steve repeats, a pinch of urgency now laced with his voice despite his best efforts.

Tony blinks several times before turning towards Steve.

The right side of his face is red with blood, from his hair—matted with it—down to his temple, his cheekbone, his jaw.

Steve pulls at his cuffs with a growl, and agony blinds him for endless seconds.

He comes back to himself to hear Tony’s concerned voice call his name. It’s a gift, each and every time it happens, each and every time Steve gets to feel Tony’s lips form the sound of his name. It’s the only thing of Tony that Steve can still claim as his in the privacy of his heartbreak.

“Steve. Steve! Hey, hey, Steve! Are you—”

He breathes until he can open his eyes again and speak, but he has to stifle down the pleased warmth unfolding in his stomach at hearing Tony so upset about him. Tony still cares about him. He doesn’t love him anymore, hasn’t in years, but—

“I’m fine, Tony. How are you? Does your head hurt?”

God, he wishes he could go to him and touch him, use his hands to make sure that Tony is fine—a little worse for wear, yeah, but nothing that can’t be solved with a couple of days of rest. With a couple of days of Steve curling up against him in bed, their perfect daughter sleeping softly close by, the bond shining again in their minds—

Yeah. Fat chance.

Steve can’t even go to him and touch him with the excuse of checking those wounds, because he is chained to a wall with a broken leg and Tony doesn’t want to be touched by him.

(But something good happened once. A couple of years before Thanos arrived on Earth, Tony was having an anxiety attack after a mission. He slept in Steve’s bed with Sarah, asked Steve to stay. So there is, actually, a small chance. A precedent, at least.)

“No.”

“Tony.”

“Okay, a bit.”

“Concussed?”

“Don’t think so.”

Small mercies.

“Where do you think we are?”

“I—” Steve focuses. He closes his eyes, lets his hearing expand beyond walls, staircases, storage rooms. “In the woods. I can hear… deer. Owls. I can smell the undergrowth. Sea’s far away.”

“New England?”

“Maybe. Doesn’t narrow it down a lot.”

“Or at all.”

“Or at all.”

“They shot down the quinjet… You remember anything after that?”

“No.”

He remembers panicking. He remembers the control wheel bending under the terror in his fingers. He remembers watching the surface of the sea getting closer and closer. He remembers Tony sitting next to him, tapping the reactor to activate the suit.

He remembers wishing he had the courage to tell Tony _I love you_ for the last time.

Goddammit.

It was supposed to be nothing. Not even a real mission. Tony didn’t even change out of the business suit he was wearing; that’s how banal this was supposed to be, how easy. The simplest thing in the world. Weird readings from Lake Montauk, Nat had said. Probably someone playing with stray alien weapons, and can you guys check it out real quick while I wrap things up here in Florida with James?

Sure. No problem.

Just alien weapons. Basically all the Avengers have been doing after killing Thanos last year: find the alien weapons, dispose of them safely.

Child’s play. Nothing to write home about.

Instead, they’re here.

“Well, I’m pissed now. Majorly so,” Tony says with a gesture of annoyance that rattles his chains.

“Who could’ve done this? Get the drop on us like this?”

“No clue. But damn, we got rusty.”

“Hey, speak for yourself. I’ll have you know I’m still as sharp as ever.”

“That’s why you’re chained up to a dirty wall.”

“Look who’s talking.”

Tony smiles. Steve smiles back.

Joking feels good. Tony’s ability to shift Steve’s attention, to ground him, to smooth his edges is always incredible, always there despite it all. Steve is still angry—he can still feel tons of Alpha hormones rushing through him and making his skin crawl—but Tony’s presence, his voice, his scent, they’re cardinal points for Steve’s soul, even with their quiet, untouched bond.

But they need to focus. They need to understand where they are and if and how they can leave, if and how they can call for help. Tony needs to concentrate and free them both, so Steve can fight their way out of this mess and take Tony home, to safety. To Sarah.

That’s when the men come and take Steve away.

***

They break his other leg, and an ankle, and a foot.

They break his left wrist, and four fingers in his right hand.

They pull out three fingernails.

They break seven of his ribs.

They dislocate his shoulder.

They kneecap him. Both knees.

They use electricity on him. Everywhere.

They use knives on him. A scalpel. Scissors.

They use a branding iron on him. They put cigarettes out on his skin. He gags from the smell of his own flesh burning.

He’s always bound with vibranium. He’s starting to hate the damn stuff.

***

He only thinks about Tony.

These men, they’re all dead. Thinking about them is of no use.

***

There’s a doctor. Tall, blond, young.

He takes a sample of Steve’s blood.

Then another, another, another...

***

They torture him, but they don’t even ask him anything. They don’t want to know anything he can tell them. He figures that all they want to know is already written in his blood.

For the rest, they’re just playing with the serum. Testing it out, stretching it to its limits.

Must be fun.

***

He passes out and regains consciousness multiple times.

Each time, there’s more torture.

There are many people in the room with him while it happens, but it’s always the same guy putting his hands on Steve. Bald, big, Alpha. Particularly gleeful about it all. He has a _fascis lictorius_ tattooed on one arm, a swastika on the other. NSDAP on his knuckles. The _Parteiadler_ on his stomach, with the wings reaching under his pectorals and to his ribs.

The Hydra symbol on his chest.

“I’m going to hurt you now,” he says each time before starting.

Poor, delusional bastard. Steve almost pities him, as well as all the others. They really think they’re doing something. They really think they can hurt Steve.

As if anything they do to his body could ever hurt more than the dead bond in his mind.

***

He comes to and he’s in the room with Tony.

He’s not chained to the wall, but his wrists are cuffed. His bones will heal all wrong like this, and he’ll have to break them again, one by one, so the serum can fix them up properly.

Pain keeps his mind alert.

Tony walks towards him. He’s free. And he looks terrible.

His shirt is unbuttoned, the two sides hanging open over his chest and revealing a tank top that’s now more gray than white. The shirt itself is stained with blood, as though Tony used it to clean up his head wound as best he could. His black pants are scuffed at the knees, and his leather shoes are covered in dust.

The edges of his goatee—

“To—”

“Hey, hey,” he says, soft. “Don’t… Here, sit up, let me... Drink this—”

Tony’s hands on him. On Steve’s skin. On his cheeks.

Tony holds a bottle of water to Steve’s lips. He drinks.

“What the hell did they do to you, I—”

“How… how long?”

“They brought me food five times. Two days, two days and a half? Did they give you any food?”

_No._

“Yes.”

Tony squints at him but says nothing in response.

“They’re Hy—”

“Hydra, yeah. Came across us by complete chance, the damn fuckers. They’re small, though, with very little resources. They’re rebuilding, looks like. Cut off one head, you know how it goes.”

Yeah. Steve knows how it goes.

“Did they hurt—”

“No. They didn’t hurt me.”

“But someone touched you.” He can smell it on Tony’s skin.

“I was… manhandled.”

“Where.” If Steve were a better man, he would’ve made it sound like an actual question. As far as he’s concerned, the fact that he doesn’t pull at his cuffs is already a win.

“Some sort of lab. They have my suit. They’re trying to reverse engineer it to replicate it, but it’s like watching the apes with the monolith in _2001: A Space Odyssey_ , only without the prospect of an evolutionary leap. Reactor’s damaged and they can’t even—”

“What do they want, Tony?” Steve tries to stifle his impatience but he’s in pain and Tony smells like someone touched him.

“They want me to build a new reactor for them.”

“And are you building a new reactor for them?”

Tony rolls his eyes. He smiles.

“What did they want from you?”

“Serum. They got my blood.”

“Shit.”

“They’re not keepin’ it.”

“Oh, yeah? And who’s gonna stop them? You? Like this?”

Steve bristles at the tone and answers with the most offended scowl he can muster, but he ultimately decides to let it go. He doesn’t want to fight.

Tony is thoughtful for a moment. “Serum, reactor… They’re all over the place.”

“Yeah. Can always count on Hydra to be pretty fucking stupid,” Steve says around a tired laugh.

Tony shoots him a serious look. “Don’t underestimate them. Look what they’ve done to you,” he says, thoughtful and sympathetic. “How you can possibly not be screaming right now, it’s a mystery.”

Steve’s lips quirk in a sardonic sneer. He raises his eyebrows at Tony, says nothing, and thinks: _I’m with you_.

Tony takes his shirt off. Steve barely has the time to realize that blood is trickling down his face and into his eyelashes from a cut on his forehead.

“Don’t move your face, you’ll reopen—”

Tony presses his shirt to Steve’s face. To Steve’s nose.

And Steve simply can’t stop himself.

He takes a deep breath. He closes his eyes.

Pain vanishes. Every discomfort disappears in a quick but natural way, abrupt and smooth all at once, the way the night melts away into the light of day. It lasts only for a few seconds—a few, beautiful, perfect seconds in which everything is just _Tony_.

There is no difference between memories and dreams in this strange world Steve inhabits for a splendid moment. Things that happened six years ago and things that will never happen except in Steve’s deepest fantasies have the same color, the same vivid quality. Facts and wishes. The past, and a future that will never, ever exist.

Breakfast in bed after the second time they had sex—the first time in an actual bed—and Tony mocking Steve’s boxer briefs, good-naturedly and lazy, the soft light of dawn shining in his tired but happy eyes, the bond fresh and brilliant in their minds. Steve’s teeth sinking into Tony’s skin. Spending the night talking on the workshop couch and the day sleeping in Steve’s room. Bathing together in the tub, Tony’s belly swollen with Sarah or someone else that Steve can’t wait to meet. Their first kiss and their last kiss. The night they made Sarah. The night they made their second child, and the third, and the fourth and, and, and. Going through a rut with Tony, and helping Tony through his heats. Going on a vacation, Sarah and her siblings swimming in a lake and playing catch at the edge of the woods. Training Tony in hand-to-hand combat in the gym, at night, the compound silent all around them, and ending up mixing blows and kisses. Going out on a double date with Bucky and Natasha. Being Avengers together. Licking Tony’s slick right from the source and leaving the worst beard burn on the inside of his thighs; listening to Tony complain about it for days. Taking the jet and ending up on some deserted beach God knows where, Tony riding him in such a wild way that they don’t even care about sand getting in the most uncomfortable places. Knotting Tony’s mouth and kissing him right after, even though he says that he’s gross (he isn’t) and you don’t need to do it (you do). Not having to hide an old t-shirt of Tony’s in a drawer because he can have Tony whenever he wants. Not having to keep a broken grandfather clock in his room so he doesn’t lose his mind. Kissing Tony, fucking Tony, marrying Tony. Drawing Tony. Being able to show Tony the drawings without him getting angry, or sad, or mad, or all of the above.

Feeling Tony in his mind, again, with no secret corners this time.

Feeling everything Tony feels, letting him feel everything Steve feels.

Being bonded, again, truly. Having a second chance.

It will never happen.

Ever.

Steve turns his head away from the shirt pressed to his face. He opens his eyes to stare at the empty space at his side, and he releases the breath he was holding deep in his lungs. His heart slows down. His mind clears, but he keeps his lips parted so he can breathe through his mouth.

He can feel pain again. It comes back into the field of his awareness all of a sudden and all at once, like water flooding a valley after the dam crumbled down.

He gasps, and that alone—this small allowance to his own weakness—helps him regain control over himself.

Tony stares, his stillness betraying hesitancy and stupor. He mouths a barely-there “Oh,” more the sound of his tongue separating from his palate than a real word, and discards the shirt to the side. In the corner of his eye, Steve sees Tony’s chest rise and fall with words that are left unspoken.

Steve hates himself so much that he wishes someone would come and take him away for more torture, so he doesn’t have to force Tony to be in a room with him.

“Sorry,” Steve whispers. Acknowledging his humiliation is still better than leaving what just happened unaddressed, but it takes all the courage he has left, and he still can’t do more than a murmur.

“Look at me, Steve.”

Steve pushes the back of his head against the wall and guides his gaze up to meet Tony’s.

Now Tony is going to say something like _This is normal_ , or _It’s not your fault_ , or even apologize for not thinking about the effect that smelling the shirt up close could have on Steve. And it will kill Steve. He’d take anything, anything at all from Tony, even contempt, but not pity. Please, not pity.

Instead, Tony reaches out to hold Steve’s face between his hands, attentive, almost tender. He shifts closer and inspects the wound on Steve’s forehead. Steve’s eyes, now free, wander downwards and linger there. Tony’s arms are still one of the most beautiful things about his body, and Steve remembers the hours spent in the workshop observing him work on the armor before they got together; he remembers how he’d stare at the veins under Tony’s skin, how the sweat would make him glisten like a piece of candy. He remembers Tony asking him for help moving something too heavy or lifting a car for him, and how Steve would seize those occasions to show off a bit, because the serum was useful for more than one thing, and Steve was still an unmated Alpha back then, bound to get silly around a handsome Omega like Tony.

Now, Steve watches Tony’s full biceps, the dark hair under his armpits, the curve of his shoulders. Steve’s bite is still there, impressed on Tony’s skin despite how old it is. The tank top covers a portion of it, but Steve looks at those tiny pink dots and can find only one desire in his heart: to sink his teeth there once again, to taste Tony’s blood on his tongue, to feel his mind split open with the rush of emotions traveling through the bond.

But it will never happen again.

Ever.

Tony is still watching Steve’s forehead.

“Cut’s almost healed. It was bleeding a minute ago.” The connection between these two facts doesn’t need to be voiced. They look at each other. Steve has never been so angry at himself for being who he is.

Tony picks up his shirt.

_No._

_No, no, not this._

“Don’t make that face.”

“Tony—”

“You need to heal.”

“They’ll take me back soon. There’s no point to it.”

“I’m almost done with the reactor. Sorry I didn’t say sooner.”

“How _almost_?”

“I just need to assemble the pieces. I told them it still needs work and they bought it… God, they’re like children.”

“I don’t think Sarah would fall for bullshit that big.”

“Good point.”

A pause.

“Don’t make me, Tony.” _Please, sweetheart. Please._

“I won’t. But you know it’s necessary.”

“You’ve always been such a practical man.”

“And you’ve always been an idealist. But there’s no room for ideals here, Avenger. Come on.”

“Tony, it’s not—”

“Let me help you. Please.”

Tony’s voice echoes against the damp walls of the tiny room they’re in. In his eyes, Steve can now read all the anguish Tony is usually so good at hiding, as well as some kind of Omega instinct he represses on a daily basis.

But Tony is who he is beyond the fact that he’s an Omega, the same way being an Alpha doesn’t define everything Steve is. Tony is a protector, a caretaker. A father, a friend.

Family.

And yet, Steve can feel a pull in his jaw, a snarl across his lips. There’s a claim to be made and he’s not making it, and his body is starting to react to it, badly, because he’s in pain and he’s weak and he’s tired and Tony should be his and his only, his always.

But if Steve takes this now, what’s going to stop him from taking all the rest? What’s going to stop him from turning violent, from tackling Tony to the ground and tearing his clothes away? What’s going to stop him from ordering Tony to strip and sit on his lap and moan like the pretty Omega he is whether he likes Steve’s huge fat knot shoved into him or—

No, no, he wouldn't do that. He wouldn’t. Steve knows his temperament, he knows his nature, he knows he’s not that kind of Alpha. He would never hurt Tony again, not willingly, but that’s the core of the matter: How can he be sure he’ll retain basic control over himself after this? How can he make predictions that would guarantee Tony’s safety? How can he, in good conscience, promise that they’ll both walk out of this unscathed when they’re so eager to play fast and loose with the ashes of their bond? He can’t; it’s too dangerous.

“Don’t do this to me, Tony.”

It must be phrased perfectly, or his tone must be desperate enough, because Tony stops in his tracks with his shirt in his hands. It’s not an order though, that’s for sure—Steve is all but begging at this point.

Tony sighs, dejected. “Goddammit,” he mouths while pinching the bridge of his nose. He gives Steve a long, empty look. He puts his shirt back on and a muscle relaxes in Steve’s neck the moment he can’t see the bite anymore.

“Can I at least sit here, with you?” Tony asks, and Steve nods, because he doesn’t trust his throat with words right now.

Tony’s shoulder is close to his, but not enough that they could bump together, even by mistake. Steve can still smell Tony, of course, the room is full of his scent, but the intensity of it is completely different from what a shirt Tony’s been wearing on and off for three days would have done pressed to Steve’s nose. A firecracker and an atomic bomb.

Still, having Tony close is good.

An hour later, some of the pain has subsided and Steve is almost dozing off, but two men enter the room to take Tony away.

They touch him. They touch Tony in front of Steve.

They might as well have signed their death sentence.

Steve tries to pull at his cuffs. The electric shock is so strong that he passes out.

***

When he wakes up again, he’s naked and chained to a table, hands still cuffed above his head.

He looks around, but he already knows where he is. He already knows who’s in the room with him.

At some point, there’s a sharp pain in his lower back, and Steve stops feeling his legs altogether. All things considered, it’s probably better this way.

***

An explosion makes a tear in the wall.

Iron Man comes through it, and Steve laughs.

***

Sunset is quickly blending into the night.

Tony lays him on the ground carefully, helps him sit against a tree. There’s a clearing in front of them, the Hydra base visible in the distance. It’s an ugly, gray two-building monstrosity that wouldn’t have been out of place in fascist Italy. Steve can hear movements inside, confused orders being shouted out. They’ll catch up with them soon if they don’t haul ass fast, but Steve’s legs are dead weight and he’s completely naked. He looks down at himself and everything is either bruised or covered in blood.

“FRIDAY, unlock 42:C. And I’m gonna need transport from the satellite in a minute.”

“Yes, boss.”

The helmet retreats from Tony’s face, and that somehow makes Steve more aware that Tony can see him, that he can see the state he’s in. He’s ashamed. He’s angry. He’s in pain. He thrashes about with his arms.

“Stop, stop, you’ll hurt yourself even more—”

Tony, a red gauntlet on the cuffs, a whirring sound choked off suddenly. The cuffs fall open around Steve’s wrists—red with blood and infection, purple with bruising, white with bones protruding out of his skin.

He lets his shoulders sag.

He focuses on the pain, so the rage that’s surging up in his chest doesn’t take over his mind. They have to leave. There’s no time to kill those fucking idiots who thought they could touch Tony with their filthy hands and walk scot free. There’s no time, and Steve is in no condition to hurt anyone that isn’t himself. It will take him days to heal, even with the serum, and by the time he’ll come back he’ll have to start a hunt that will only waste his time.

His eyes sting with tears. He doesn’t know what they’re for.

A metal capsule lands close to them, and Tony opens it. There’s a first aid kit inside, and clothes, and boots that Steve can’t wear because his ankles are mangled with multiple compound fractures that are bleeding but not hurting because he can’t feel anything from his groin down.

The armor retreats into the reactor. Tony starts stripping and Steve tears his gaze away, fixing it over the heap of dirty designer clothes falling onto the grass.

Tony uses wet wipes to clean up as much as the situation allows. He dresses—sweatpants, a blue sweater. Boots. He turns to Steve.

“Leave me,” he says. Tony shoots him the coldest look. “They’ll be here soon. You need the advantage.”

At that moment, a jet starts assembling on the grass a few feet away from them.

“Shut the fuck up, Steve,” is Tony’s only reply. He starts cleaning up Steve’s face and neck with the wipes, hesitates around the cuts on his chest, is careful when lifting his arms to get at his armpits.

He bandages Steve’s wrists and ankles as best he can, covering the wounds with gauze. He wraps up Steve’s broken fingers. He disinfects the slashes on Steve’s skin. Steve feels his eyelids grow heavy.

Tony helps him wear a t-shirt. Then, he tries to put sweatpants on Steve, and that’s when Steve realizes that there’s something wrong with his penis.

It’s been folded over itself and twisted and tied up with twine and some type of barbed wire that Steve has never seen before. There’s dried blood all over it and the skin is blue with the loss of circulation. They must have done this while Steve was passed out, not even to hurt him, just for the fun of it. He tries to touch it, but he can’t use his hands. Tony looks at him for several meaningful seconds, and Steve says nothing. He squeezes his eyes shut, grits his teeth and soldiers on through this new humiliation.

Tony’s touch is extremely delicate, and almost apologetic in how careful it is. He unwraps the wire from around Steve’s penis, slow when he pulls each barb from the skin. He produces a Swiss Army knife from somewhere and cuts the twine, then pulls the foreskin to the hilt and back over the shaft once or twice. He waits for blood to return to Steve’s penis, then he disinfects it and bandages it, taking particular care of the area where the knot usually grows. Finally, with some difficulty, Tony pulls the sweatpants up to Steve’s waist.

“Thank you,” Steve says, so he doesn’t cry.

Tony pushes Steve’s hair away from his forehead and gives him the saddest smile in the world.

He taps the reactor.

“FRIDAY, Carol. No video feed.”

“Tony!” Carol’s voice. Worried. “Holy shit, what happened?”

“Long story, spaceface. I’ll explain. The gist of it is that we were kidnapped by Hydra, if you can believe it.”

“Hydra?”

“Yeah.”

“Cut off one head, huh?”

“That’s what I said. Listen, we’re mostly okay. Steve… less than me. He’s… They…” Tony sighs. “Shit,” he says to the side, before coughing once and regaining control. “I would appreciate it if a couple of doctors were around the compound when we get back. We have a jet and will be home soon. How’s Sarah?”

“Scared, but you know how stoic she is. She put on her brave face and let everyone do their jobs. Not even Pepper could get her to put down her She-Hulk plushie for a single second, but she’s okay. We searched for you, but the trail went cold around Wainscott.”

“Yeah, that’s where they got us. We were on our way to… shit, the weapons—”

“Sharon and Rhodey took care of them, don’t worry.”

“Okay. That’s good. We’re in Vermont now. They tried to get Steve’s blood. Listen, Carol, there’s been an explosion, and... I’d rather S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t look too much into it.”

“I’ll talk with Fury.”

“Thank you. See you soon.”

“See you soon, Tony.”

The call ends.

“There’s been no explosion,” Steve says. “Tony. What were you talking about?”

“Oh,” Tony says, and a devilish expression dances, briefly, over his features. “Almost forgot. FRIDAY?”

For a second, the air is completely still. Everything is quiet with foreboding.

Then, bombs go off at the base of the Hydra facility. Steve watches as it crumbles on itself and burns down in the span of only a few minutes. No one that was inside could have survived. No one.

“FRIDAY, bio signs?”

“All clear, boss.”

Tony huffs a small laugh.

“Let’s keep an eye on things for a few days. Anything moves in a mile radius, I know about it. Understood?”

“Yes, boss.”

Steve wants to die. He was supposed to do all that. He was supposed to be the one who killed them all, that got Tony home. Instead, he’s useless. A useless Alpha that’s no good at anything. His Omega doesn’t want him. His Omega doesn’t need him.

He’s nothing. Just broken bones and broken skin and a wilting bond in his mind that hurts more than torture.

Tony is back in the armor. He reaches down to Steve.

“Come on, Avenger. Let’s get you to the jet. Let’s go cuddle our daughter.”

 _Our_ daughter.

It takes just this simple word for Steve to pick up the broken pieces of his pride. As bad as he is, he still helped make Sarah, who is the best, most perfect thing in the world. Something Tony and him made together. She’s _theirs_ , and she’s amazing.

Steve holds onto Tony to the best of his ability, and Tony lifts him up with no effort. He carries him to the jet and makes him sit in the co-pilot seat, fastening his seatbelt while the suit crawls back into the reactor.

Again, Tony uses his fingers to comb Steve’s hair away from his forehead. Steve leans into the touch before remembering that he shouldn’t.

It’s been years since they’ve been this close. Since they’ve touched this much.

Tony goes into the back of the jet, and Steve can hear him rummage through the equipment.

“Got an indecent proposal for you,” he says after a bit.

“Oh?”

“Ice packs. I’ve got… five. You want?”

“Please.”

They take off soon after.

Steve looks out of the window until the flames aren’t visible anymore. Then, he falls asleep.

***

Steve opens his eyes against the ceiling of his room at the Avengers compound.

He notices a few things in rapid succession.

First, that it’s late in the afternoon. The sun is setting.

Then, that his entire body is in excruciating pain, but—and also because—he can feel his legs again.

Last, that his daughter is curled up as close to him as she can without actually touching him. Someone must have been very clear about that.

She’s awake, and she lifts her head up to look at him.

“Dad?”

“Hey, sweetpea.”

She kneels on the bed. She’s clutching her She-Hulk doll like her life depends on it.

“You woke up!”

“I did. Are you happy?”

“Yes!” She’s thoughtful for a moment. Her expression is the same Tony has when he’s thinking. “Can I kiss you?”

“Of course. Careful, there—”

Steve lets her come closer. She kisses his cheek. Her hair smells like home and safety and family and love and heartbreak.

“Dad said bad people hurt you.”

“They did.”

“Where are they now? Can they hurt other dads?”

“No, baby. They’re locked up.”

“Oh. That’s good I guess… Um, do you feel any better now?”

“A bit, baby. A tiny bit.”

“Dad said to stay with you. He went downstairs ‘cause Uncle Rhodey needed him for a thing. Dunno what. Do you wanna hug She-Hulk?”

Steve smiles. “I’d love to hug She-Hulk.”

She puts the doll on Steve’s chest, and Steve tries to move his arm to hug it. He doesn’t manage very well, but it must be enough for Sarah, who seems to be very happy with the results. She sits close to him.

“I love you very much, Dad.”

“Oh, sweetpea. I love you too. Were you scared that Dad and I were away?”

“Yes. Carol said… So I just… But—”

“Oh, baby, don’t cry. It’s fine. We’re back now and we’re fine.”

“But you’re—”

“I know, but I’ll be fine. Soon. Promise. Here, come up here—”

Steve can’t move, but she understands him immediately, twisting on the bed to bury her face into Steve’s neck. He can feel her calm down against his body, and having her this close, being able to feel her hair on his face, her soft skin against his beard… it makes the pain tolerable for Steve.

Suddenly, she looks up at him and says, “Do you want to listen to a song?” and Steve makes the mistake of replying with a “Yes,” so he spends the next five minutes listening to Sarah sing an absurd song about a cat named Fred who only has one eye. It’s ridiculous and makes no sense and it’s the best song Steve has ever heard in his entire life. Sarah laughs so much that she has tears in her eyes when Tony enters the room.

He sits on the other side of Steve’s bed.

That’s when Steve realizes something he should’ve probably noticed earlier: The other side of his bed looks used. Tony’s sleep clothes are lying on top of the covers, which are somewhat in disarray. Sarah is wearing her Ms. Marvel pajamas.

All these pieces should click together in Steve’s brain, but they don’t. He’s tired, and he—

“How’re you feeling? Steve?”

“I’m… I—”

“What is it?”

“How long have I been—”

“We got home last night. The doctors patched you up. You’ve been sleeping since then.”

“And you—”

“Sarah, baby… would you mind leaving me and Dad alone for a bit? We have to talk about a super super boring thing.”

“How boring?”

“So boring that… your brain will leak out of your ears if you stay!” Tony says, tickling Sarah’s belly and making her laugh.

“Yikes! That’s gross!”

“It is! It’s so gross that you wouldn’t wish it on your worst enemy! Go downstairs, okay? Uncle Rhodey is reading very important stuff in the living room, he’d love to be disturbed.”

“On it!” Sarah says in a very solemn voice, and she dashes out the room while Tony shouts at her not to run down the stairs.

Once alone, a thick silence settles between them.

“We slept here last night. With you,” Tony says eventually, voice calm and even but full of shame, too. “And we’ve been here pretty much the whole day. The doctor said… But it wasn’t just that, and—”

“Tony—”

“I was worried and I made the call, okay? And I like to think it was the right one, since you’re already awake. I know you don’t… You couldn’t consent to it and… You didn’t even want my shirt, for fuck’s sake, so I—”

“Tony—”

“I’m sorry. I’m just saying… I’ll go. I’ll leave you with Sarah… We can have the sheets changed if you—”

“Shut the fuck up, Tony,” Steve says, soft and quiet so it’s not an order, just a reference to Tony’s words from yesterday. “Thank you for staying. I’m glad you did. I’d be very happy if you stayed tonight as well.” He doesn’t have the courage to ask him to stay until he’s healed.

Tony seems to want to say something, but then he doesn’t.

“Can I…” Steve hesitates around the request. “Can I get some water?”

Tony moves to Steve’s bedside table and places a straw between his lips a moment later.

Something angry and displeased plays around Tony’s mouth. “They didn’t give you any food, did they? Hydra. I suspected, but then the doctors told me. They had to feed you through an IV.”

Steve doesn’t reply.

“You lied to me.”

 _Take me back to the torture room_ , Steve thinks. _Break every single bone in my body, but not this. Not this_.

“I didn’t want you to worry about me.”

“I was already worried! Steve! When they threw you back into that room you were a sack of broken bones. Do you think that didn’t worry me? I was terrified you’d die in my arms! Of infection, of, of a perforated lung! Do you have _any_ idea what that would’ve done to—”

“Tony, I can’t… I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I can’t fight with you. I’m sorry. I—”

“Shit, Steve,” Tony says, and he sits on the bed, his thigh touching Steve’s. When he speaks next, his voice is low, crestfallen. “I’m sorry. I don’t even know why I’m mad, really. That they made us so easily, maybe. That I let them hurt you like this.”

“Tony, it’s not your fault—”

“I know. I just… Fuck.” He brushes a hand over his face. He looks like he’s aged fifty years since yesterday, and it takes all the self-control Steve has left not to reach across the bond and soothe his agony.

“Tony, what you did—”

“Yeah, I… I shouldn’t have done it. I know. I should’ve called S.H.I.E.L.D. and…” He releases a breath of barely-contained anger. “No, you know what? Fuck that. I don’t care. They got what they deserved. I don’t regret doing it and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Go ahead and be disgusted or disappointed or whatever the fuck else, I don’t give a shit. They hurt _you_. If you think that’s in any way acceptable to me—”

Steve rests his hand on top of one of Tony’s, and that shuts him right up. It hurts to move for Steve, and he clenches his teeth to handle the pain, but in the end it’s worth it if he gets to feel Tony’s warmth through the bandages. A fingertip actually touches skin. And Tony doesn’t flinch away.

“Just… Thank you, Tony,” Steve says, and Tony just looks at him, bewildered and unsure, so Steve decides that he needs to make his position on the matter clearer. “I would’ve done the same for you. I wanted to do the same. I’m sorry I couldn’t.”

Tony grimaces. “Oh, Steve,” he whispers, and turns his hand into Steve’s, so they’re palm to palm.

They stay like that, in silence, for many precious minutes, and Steve has the time to assess how much his body is hurting, which is a lot. But it’s still the phantom pain in his mind that truly kills him.

Sarah comes back after a while. Tony changes into his sleeping clothes, and they huddle close in bed, Steve as still as possible, Sarah between him and Tony.

“What do you wanna watch?” Tony asks her.

“The best movie _ever_ , duh,” is her reply, and Steve and Tony exchange an amused look.

 _Mulan_ starts soon after on the holoscreen.

Steve doesn’t really pay attention to it.

He keeps thinking about the Hydra base collapsing on itself. He keeps thinking about the flames licking at the clouds in the early night sky. He keeps thinking about the two tall pyres, one per building, lapping up at the sparse stars like burning giraffes.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is part of the title of a song by (The) Slowest Runner (in all the World).
> 
> On [Tumblr](https://silkspectred.tumblr.com/post/185321242630/aembers-67k-m-steve-rogerstony-stark-mcu)  
> On [Twitter](https://twitter.com/silkspectred/status/1135264455271620608)


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